After the Cabin Read online

  “They're not making any progress,” I mutter, biting my nails. I should stop, but I can't; simple little jobs are good for keeping my mind calm. Doctor Lewis tried to persuade me to stay at the hospital after my initial twenty-four hours were up, but I refused and his attempt to get me forcibly committed didn't work. At least I'm home now, and I'm certain I can figure out the truth if I just have some time to think. “What about her phone?” I ask after a moment.

  “They asked about it a few times,” he replies. “Like, if any of us had ever touched it, that sort of thing. They took our fingerprints too, so maybe they've got something they want to compare to. I don't know, there's obviously stuff they aren't telling anyone, but I don't get the impression that they're close to making an arrest.”

  “Do they think she's still alive?”

  “Who knows? I guess as the days go by...”

  His voice trails off, but I know what he was about to say. He thinks that time's running out, and he's probably right. It's been almost a week now since Karen was last seen, and it's hard to believe that someone has been holding her captive all that time. Most likely, they took what they wanted from her and then -

  Suddenly I see her sobbing face, and I hear the sound of her throat being cut.

  “No,” I stammer, sitting back.

  “Anna?” Matt asks. “Are you okay?”

  For a fraction of a second, I see the knife being driven deeper into her neck, as if...

  “Anna?”

  As if someone's cutting off her head.

  “Do you want me to fetch someone?” Matt asks.

  I turn to him, my mind racing as I think back to the headless woman I saw the other night. I thought she was older, in her thirties or more, but now I'm starting to wonder whether in some twisted way, that woman was Karen. I haven't really seen her naked for years, but she always wears fairly loose clothes so I guess the body-shape might be a match.

  I take a deep breath. “What if -”

  Suddenly my mind is filled with another image.

  I'm kneeling on the ground with a bloodied knife in my right hand, and a headless corpse is next to me. It's night, with the only light coming from a street-lamp about twenty meters away. Looking down at my hands, I see that there's blood all over them, and they're shaking.

  “Anna?”

  I turn to Matt again.

  “What if I'm forgetting things?” I ask him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if as well as hallucinating things, I'm also forgetting what really happens? What if the hallucinations are my mind's way of covering over things I don't want to remember?”

  He frowns. “Did one of the doctors tell you that might be happening?”

  “The night Karen went missing,” I continue, “I remember all the stuff I did, I remember watching the video, but what if I'm wrong? What if somehow...” I pause again, trying to ignore the rising sense of fear in my chest. “What if -”

  Before I can finish, I see Jennifer standing on the cabin's front steps. For a moment, it's almost as if I'm right back there again, but the image quickly changes and I see myself walking along the street with Karen. We're both wearing our uniforms from the hotel, and we're laughing and talking as if...

  “What if my subconscious mind's trying to tell me something?” I whisper finally, turning to Matt again. “What if I did something to Karen?”

  Twelve

  It's a dream. I know that, I have zero doubt that it's a dream, but it feels so real.

  Standing in the cabin's entrance hallway, I watch as the pile of corpses continues to burn. Jennifer's in there somewhere, along with her brother Joe, and Daniel and Christian, and Ole the police officer. The heat from the fire is almost strong enough to burn my face, even from several meters away, but I can't help standing and watching. After a moment, I realize I can see one side of Jennifer's head, with the flames rippling across her flesh. Is this how I saw the bodies when I was actually at the cabin, or am I embellishing the memory slightly?

  And then I realize that he's right behind me.

  Turning, I let out a gasp as I see Cole with his camera aimed at my face. The little red light seems brighter than the nearby flames, brighter than anything I've ever seen before, and – as I take a few cautious steps back – Cole starts to advance, keeping the camera's lens trained on my face.

  “Is this what you want?” I shout.

  No, wait.

  That's wrong.

  On the actual night, I shouted something different.

  “Do you want me to scream?”

  That was it. Those are the exact words I used.

  “Do you want me to scream?” I yell, feeling a sense of anger rising through my chest. “Do the people watching want me to scream? Is that the whole point? Do you want to see and hear just how scared I am?”

  As I back against the wall, he keeps coming. I can see my terrified face reflected in the lens now, and I swear I can imagine all the people who'll watch this video.

  “Do it,” I remember telling him, and I say the same thing again. There was a moment when I really, truly wanted him to kill me, just so that all the misery and pain would be over.

  “Do it!” I scream.

  I wait, but he seems happy to just film me.

  “Do it!” I yell at the top of my voice, turning to run before suddenly finding that I'm outside, and the morning sun has begun to rise. In a fraction of a second, several hours have passed, and when I look back at the cabin I see that it's now nothing more than a smoldering pile of burned wood. I remember this moment, I remember the sense of stunned, numb relief when I realized that I'd somehow managed to survive, but this time, in the dream, I feel very different. I feel angry, and scared, and determined to make someone pay for what happened to me.

  “Everyone thinks you're so innocent,” Jennifer's voice whispers in my ear. “Poor Anna, brave Anna, strong Anna. What if they knew the truth? What if they knew what you did after the cabin burned down?”

  “Help,” another voice gasps. “Somebody... help me...”

  No, wait.

  It's the same voice.

  Turning, I see a burned and bloodied figure dragging itself across the grass. I step closer, but the figure is so badly hurt, I don't even recognize it until finally it turns and looks toward me.

  Jennifer.

  “No,” I whisper, feeling a flash of fear in my chest, “this didn't happen. You were already dead, you were stabbed and then your body was burned, you never -”

  “Help me!” she screams, her voice filled with pain and echoing across the clearing as she turns and tries desperately to crawl away. “Somebody help me!”

  I've often wondered what I'd do if I ever had a chance to face Jennifer again. In the hospital I used to fantasize about this moment over and over, even though I knew she was dead. Of course, since I understood that there was no chance of the situation arising, I was able to tell myself that I'd be able to resist temptation, that I'd rise above petty revenge and take the high road. Now, however, I feel an unquenchable sense of anger rising through my chest, and a moment later I spot a knife resting on the ground. Reminding myself that this is still just a dream, I pick up the knife and then start making my way over to Jennifer's trembling body.

  “Help!” she shouts, her voice guttural and strained. “Please help me!”

  “I think I shouted the exact same thing in the basement,” I tell her, my voice sounding surprisingly calm now. “You laughed.”

  “Help!” she sobs. “I don't want to die! Somebody help me!”

  “You want help?” I ask, stepping over her. I pause for a moment, before kneeling next to her. “Here. Have some help!” With that, I drive the knife deep into her back, right between her shoulder-blades, and as she lets out an agonized scream I feel certain that I must have severed her spine.

  I twist the knife, enjoying the sensation of the blade grinding against her bones, and then slowly I slide it back out. There's blood on the metal, of course,
along with crispy black pieces of her burned flesh.

  “Help me,” she whimpers, reaching forward with just her arms now, as if she's lost the use of her legs. “I don't deserve this...”

  “You don't deserve it?” I hiss. “You don't deserve it?” Filled with anger, I stab her in the back again, then a couple more times, each time feeling the thud of the knife's handle as it hits her skin. “I didn't deserve any of it!” I scream, still stabbing her wildly as tears flow down my face. I stab her again and again, until the knife's blade snaps. I pull the handle back, but the blade is lost in her body.

  “Help me,” she whispers, still somehow alive.

  “I don't want to do this,” I sob, even as I grab her shoulder and roll her onto her back. As soon as I see her bare chest and belly, I feel a shudder of horror at the sight of her bright red, glistening flesh. “I don't want to do this to you,” I cry, leaning over her as my body starts shaking uncontrollably. “Just die already. This isn't what really happened!”

  I wait, feeling as if I can't bear to move another inch. My eyes are squeezed tight shut now, and I can feel a cool breeze blowing against my bloodied, naked body.

  “Bitch,” I hear Jennifer's voice say after a moment. “Is this the best you can do? Remembering me in a stupid dream? Why don't you wake up and admit what you really did.”

  “What I did?” I whisper, keeping my eyes shut. “I didn't do anything...”

  “You didn't drag my corpse out of the cabin and humiliate me?”

  “No, I...” Pausing, I try to think back to that final morning. “I just walked,” I stammer. “I walked down to the lake, and then I tried to find a road.”

  “You're lying to yourself.”

  “No, I'm not, I -”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” she continues.

  With my eyes still shut, I shake my head.

  “Let me promise you one thing,” she tells me. “If ghosts are real, and if there's any way for me to come back and make you pay for what you did, I will haunt you until you sink a knife into your own goddamn heart.”

  “I didn't do anything,” I sob.

  “You don't remember gutting me like a fish?” she asks. “You don't remember slitting me open from crotch to throat and -”

  “No!” I shout. “That didn't happen!”

  “Liar!”

  Opening my eyes, I stare down at her torn-open body. The skin from her groin all the way up to her neck has been carved open and pulled aside, exposing the glistening bones and organs within. I want to turn and run, but instead I find myself reaching in and placing one hand on her intestines and the other and her ribcage. I start to squeeze, digging my left hand deeper into her guts while, with my right, I break first one rib and then a couple more. This feels good. She tortured me, and now I'm going to do the same thing in return.

  “Don't you remember what else you did to my corpse?” she asks.

  “I didn't do anything!” I stammer, even though I can't pull my hands out. There's a faint pressure on the back of my neck, pushing me down, but I force myself to stay up. “I just walked away!”

  “Tell yourself that,” she sneers, as the pressure pushes my face down toward her bloodied guts. “You have to face the truth one day. I can see it in your eyes, Anna. I saw it the other night, too.”

  “No,” I whisper, as my face is pressed against her exposed liver. “This is a dream!”

  “I saw it in your eyes,” she gurgles, “when we were on the walkway over the train tracks.”

  I try to cry out, but her blood is flooding into my mouth now and I can't pull away. As the blood flows down the back of my throat, I realize her body is shuddering, but a moment later I understand the truth.

  She's laughing.

  “Shut up!” I scream, sitting up and then slamming my fists down against her neck with all the force I can manage. “Shut up! Shut up!” I keep hitting her, pummeling her flesh and feeling the bones break beneath. Still I keep going, sobbing as I hit her throat over and over again. I don't know how long it lasts, but this veil of fury finally lifts and I sit back, shocked when I look down and realize that her head has come loose from her neck.

  And that's when I realize that it was Jennifer's headless body that pursued me through the streets the other night. Slowly, as I stare down at her, I feel as if the whole world around me is starting to life up, and I turn just in time to see the burned cabin flickering from view.

  My eyes are closed.

  I need to -

  Letting out a gasp, I sit up in bed, back in my darkened bedroom. I'm out of breath and covered in sweat, but with a sense of relief I realize that at least I'm awake.

  “Everyone thinks you're so innocent,” Jennifer's voice whispers yet again. “What if they knew what you did after the cabin burned down?”

  “What?” I ask out loud, feeling a slow sense of fear crawling through my chest. “What did I do?”

  Thirteen

  “Not this time, young lady,” Mum says firmly as she carries another bag of shopping in from the car. “Doctor Lewis says you're to rest, and by God I'm going to make sure you follow those orders to the letter.”

  “But you can't actually take my phone away from me,” I reply, trying not to sound too annoyed. “Mum, please, I need to be able to contact people!”

  “So you can go running off to another bar?”

  “Mum -”

  “Listen to me,” she continues, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Anna, I gave you the benefit of the doubt when you came home the first time, and look how that worked out. Doctor Lewis tried to have you forcibly held at the hospital, you know. He was very unhappy that he couldn't get the order, and frankly I agree with him. After what happened to you the other night, there's no way they should have let you out, but sometimes I think mental health care in this country is going to the dogs.” She sighs as she tosses some packages into the freezer. “I told him that I'd look after you, and I'm afraid you're just going to have to accept a slower pace of life for a while.”

  “Is there any news about Karen?” I ask.

  “Not since the last time you asked, about half an hour ago.”

  I pause for a moment, trying to work out what I should do next. “I need to call Detective Bryson,” I stammer finally. “He'll be able to do something.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Mum, it's important!”

  “You've spoken to that poor man twice in the past two days,” she explains calmly, “and he still doesn't think there's anything to your theory.”

  “It's not a theory,” I reply. “I think I'm really doing things that I don't remember!”

  “Anna...”

  “What if I'm the one who kidnapped Karen?”

  She sighs.

  “I don't think I can trust myself,” I tell her. “I need cameras, I need to be able to watch everything back so I know what I've really been doing.”

  She stares at me for a moment. “Sweetheart, please, you must know deep down that there's no way you could have done anything to Karen. Your brain is just whirling with all these ideas, and it's making connections where none exist. I'm sure Karen will show up alive and well before too long, and she'll probably have some funny little story about where she's been. You know what Karen's like -”

  “Just let me call Bryson one more time,” I continue, hoping against hope that she'll finally understand why this is so important. “Mum, I need to make him understand! I think I'm dangerous!”

  “He's told you the evidence doesn't -”

  “Please!”

  She sighs. “Do I have to call Doctor Lewis?”

  “No!”

  “If I think you need to go back to hospital, I won't hesitate to pick up the phone.” She pauses for a moment, eying me carefully. “I'm not suggesting that you become a prisoner in this home, Anna, I'm just saying that you need to take things easy. Look what happened last time, when you started pushing yourself again.” She places a hand on the side of my face. “You don't r
ealize it, sweetheart, but you're so fragile right now. The slightest thing could push you back over the edge.” She runs a finger against one of my scars. “You'll get better, I promise, but it takes time.”

  “I don't have time,” I tell her. “Karen's missing and...”

  Realizing that I'm bashing my head against a brick wall, I take a deep breath.

  “Maybe you're right,” I say finally. “I pushed too hard last time. I'll be more careful.”

  “Promise?”

  Another deep breath. I need to get her out of my way, so I can get things done. “Promise.”

  ***

  “Matt? No, I don't think he's on today. I can call through to the kitchen and check, though.”

  “It's okay,” I tell the new receptionist, feeling a flash of disappointment. Grabbing one of the hotel's cards, I note down my email address and hand it to her. “Next time you see him, could you let him have that? Tell him I need to speak to him, tell him it's urgent.”

  “Sure,” she replies with a forced smile. She looks at the email address for a moment, and I can tell that she's feeling distinctly uneasy.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  “No,” she stammers, “it's just...” She stares at me. “Are you...”

  There's an awkward pause for a moment, before I realize what's wrong.

  “Yes,” I reply finally, “I'm the same Anna Matthews who was in the news.”

  “Oh God,” she continues, “I'm so sorry! That video was horrible, I can't believe... Sorry, I'm sure you don't want to talk about it...”

  “Not really,” I tell her. “Just let Matt have that card, okay?”

  “Absolutely! I promise!”

  “Thanks.” Turning, I head toward the door before stopping for a moment. Did she just say...

  “The video,” I say cautiously, glancing back at her. “You said it was horrible.”

  “It's just gross,” she continues, with a visible shudder.